BAGHDAD - The

Iraqis met with great skepticism the announcement by Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi of the arrest of the killer of analyst and security researcher Hisham Al-Hashemi, more than a year after his death in front of his home in Zayouna district, east of Baghdad.

Although the killer confessed to the crime in the videotape broadcast on state television on Friday evening, many questions remained unanswered, most notably regarding the motives for the killing and the party that ordered it.

Confessions of the killer #Hisham_Al-Hashimi

pic.twitter.com/EQ03ndhMQK

— Saif Salah Al-Heity (@saifsalahalhety) July 16, 2021

The televised tape of the killer named Ahmed Hamdawi al-Kinani, a first lieutenant working in the Ministry of Interior, angered the Iraqi street, and some doubted that he was the real criminal, for not naming the parties behind the assassination, while others found that they were positive steps from Al-Kazemi and a window to reveal more killers, including the killers of protesters, activists and journalists across the country.

We promised to arrest the killers of Hisham al-Hashemi and we fulfilled the promise, and before that we put the death squads and the killers of Ahmed Abdel-Samad before justice, and our forces arrested hundreds of criminals implicated in the blood of innocents.


Everyone has the right to criticize, we do not work for cheap ads or bid, but we do our duty as much as we can to serve our people and achieve the right

— Mustafa Al-Kadhimi Mustafa Al-Kadhim (@MAKadhimi) July 16, 2021

Lack of confidence in authority

Political analyst Talib Al-Ahmad told Al-Jazeera Net, "The lack of confidence in authority is a trend that Iraqis inherited for decades, and now there are signs that form political awareness after the popular movement."

Al-Ahmad added that “the issue is bigger and more complex than just revealing the killers. What happened and is happening indicates the failure of the political forces to rebuild the Iraqi state after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the security leaders and high military ranks became subject to political quotas and mostly loyalty considerations, and as a result, traditions were absent. The strict rules of the security and military institutions that were common in Iraq, and an example in their extreme discipline.

Al-Ahmad: Exposing the party that ordered the killing of Al-Hashemi may lead to an exchange of serious accusations between the government and its opponents (Al-Jazeera)

Al-Ahmad indicated that "Al-Kazemi does not want to open new confrontations with his opponents, especially since they have extensions in the organs and institutions of the political system, and therefore he deals with them with flexibility and the policy of the door is open to everyone."

As for the reason for not revealing the name of the party that ordered the killing of Al-Hashemi, Al-Ahmad analyzes that, “This would lead to confusion in the political scene and exchange of dangerous accusations between the government and its opponents, and then justify resorting to force and weapons. it now."

As for the political analyst, Raed Al-Hamid, he spoke to Al-Jazeera Net, saying, "Al-Kazemi, more than a year after the assassination of Al-Hashemi, found herself compelled to announce the arrest of the killers, in order to clear his name in front of his pledges he made to himself on the day of the crime, and other pledges to reveal the killers of demonstrators and activists, but Not to achieve absolute justice and hold the perpetrators to account, and this is beyond his capabilities and capabilities, at a time when information indicates that the party to which the killers belong hastened to smuggle the rest of the criminals out of Iraq.”

“I think that the arrest of one killer is important, but this does not achieve justice in holding all those involved in the assassination accountable,” Al-Hamid says, and he remembers, “The last meeting he met with Al-Hashimi was months before his assassination. He was talking to me about threats that he received from different factions, and he was Then he thinks of moving to either Turkey or the Kurdistan region of Iraq to escape death.”

(The island)

Escaping from the Punishment

The activist in the popular movement, Zayed Al-Asad, says, "The tape that was broadcast is not convincing because it did not address the real motives that led to the assassination of Al-Hashemi, and there is a deliberate omission to mention objective things, and this is not an end to impunity, but rather a dedication to the idea of ​​evasion of the parties and the real motives of assassinations in Iraq." .

Al-Asad stressed that the process of impunity will continue unless consensus is reached on the state and the political decision is achieved, and this is unlikely in light of the presence of political parties with military wings that operate outside the framework of the law.

Al-Asad added, "This government does not have the courage or the political decision to announce the killers of protesters, activists, journalists, media professionals and others, and the government, with the help of its two parties, who have military wings outside the framework of the state and who are accused of carrying out assassinations against citizens, especially the factions close to Iran, searched for a vent. to the crises it faces, and the announcement of the killer’s identity came in line with pressures on the need not to address the motives of the party involved in the assassination.”

Al-Kazemi visited the Hashemi family at the time and vowed that Iraq would not sleep before the killers were held accountable (communication sites)

assassination incident

Al-Hashemi, 47, was assassinated by gunmen riding two motorcycles in front of his house in Baghdad on July 6, 2020, and died after being taken to hospital.

And accounts on the communication platforms published videos that they said showed the assassination.

CCTV footage of assassination of Iraqi security analyst Husham Al-Hashimi in Baghdad.

#Hisham_Al-Hashimi pic.twitter.com/UTaSVDfAVN

— Abdullah Dhiaa Al-deen (@abdullaiii) July 6, 2020

Al-Hashemi had published a tweet on his Twitter account minutes before his assassination, in which he talked about the causes of political divisions in the country, criticizing sectarian quotas.

In response to the assassination of Al-Hashemi, Al-Kazemi made 3 promises to pursue and hold the killers accountable, not to allow the assassinations to return to the country, to confine weapons to the state, and vowed that Iraq would not sleep until the killers were held accountable.